great safes, as big as cupboards, and these mirrors, in which you can see yourself from head to knee?  And then those sonorous prospectuses, those millions that I seemed to hear flying through the air, those colossal enterprises with their fabulous profits.  I was dazzled, fascinated.  It must be mentioned, too, that at the time the house did not bear quite the aspect which it has to-day.  Certainly, business was already going badly—­our business always has gone badly—­the paper appeared only at irregular intervals.  But a little combinazione of the governor’s enabled him to save appearances.

He had conceived the idea, just imagine, of opening a patriotic subscription for the purpose of erecting a statue to General Paolo Paoli, or some such name; in any case, to a great countryman of his own.  Money flowed accordingly into the Territorial.  Unfortunately, that state of things did not last.  By the end of a couple of months the statue was eaten up before it had been made, and the series of protests and writs recommenced.  Nowadays I am accustomed to them.  But in the days when I had just come from the country, the Auvergnats at the door, caused me a painful impression.  In the house, nobody paid attention to such things any longer.  It was known that at the last moment there would always arrive a Monpavon, a Bois l’Hery, to pacify the bailiffs; for all those gentlemen, being deeply implicated in the concern, have an interest in avoiding a bankruptcy.  That is the very circumstance which saves him, our wily governor.  The others run after their money—­we know the meaning which that expression has in gaming—­and they would not like all the stock on their hands to become worthless save to sell for waste paper.

Small and great, that is the case of all of us who are connected with the firm.  From the landlord, to whom two years’ rent is owing and who, for fear of losing it all, allows us to stay for nothing, to us poor employees, even to me, who am involved to the extent of my seven thousand francs of savings and my four years of arrears, we are running after our money.  That is the reason why I remain obstinately here.

Doubtless, in spite of my advanced age, thanks to my good appearance, to my education, to the care which I have always taken of my clothes, I might have obtained some post under other management.  There is one person of excellent repute known to me, M. Joyeuse, a bookkeeper in the firm of Hemerlingue & Son, the great bankers of the Rue Saint-Honore, who, every time he meets me, never fails to remark: 

“Passajon, my friend, don’t stop in that den of brigands.  You are wrong to persist in remaining.  You will never get a halfpenny out of them.  So come to Hemerlingue’s.  I undertake to find some little corner for you there.  You will earn less, but you will be paid much more.”

I feel that he is quite right, that worthy fellow.  But the thing is stronger than I. I cannot make up my mind to leave.  And yet it is by no means gay, the life I lead here in these great, cold rooms, where no one ever comes, where each man stows himself away in a corner without speaking.  What will you have?  Each knows the other too well.  Everything has been said already.